Vasya smiled suddenly. “Tomorrow, then,” she said.
“Run along, Vasya,” said Anna, a little shrill. “The holy father can have no more need of you.”
THERE WAS A MIST on the ground the next morning. The light of the rising sun turned it to fire and smoke, striped with the shadows of trees. The girl greeted Konstantin with a wary, glowing face. She was like a spirit in the haze.
The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya was not like the forest around Moscow. It was wilder and crueler and fairer. The vast trees whispered together overhead, and all around, Konstantin seemed to feel eyes. Eyes…nonsense.
“I know where the wild mint grows,” said Vasya as they followed a thin dirt track. The trees made a cathedral-arch above their heads. The girl’s bare feet were delicate in the dust. She had a skin bag slung across her back. “And there will be elderberries if we are fortunate, and blackberries. Alder for yellow. But that is not enough for the face of a saint. You will paint us icons, Batyushka?”
“I have the red earth, the powdered stones, the black metal. I even have the lapis-dust to make the Virgin’s veil. But I have no green or yellow or violet,” said Konstantin. Belatedly he heard the eagerness in his own voice.
“Those we can find,” said Vasya. She skipped like a child. “I have never seen an icon painted. Neither has anyone else. We will all come and beg you for prayers, that we might stare as you work.”
He had known folk to do just that. In Moscow, they thronged about his icons…
“You are human after all,” said Vasya, watching the thoughts cross his face. “I wondered. You are like an icon yourself sometimes.”
He did not know what she’d seen on his face and was angry at himself. “You wonder too much, Vasilisa Petrovna. Better to stay quiet at home with your little sister.”
“You are not the first to tell me that,” said Vasya without rancor. “But if I did, who would go with you at dawn to find bits of leaves? Here—”
They stopped for birch, and again for wild mustard. The girl was deft with her small knife. The sun rose higher, burning away the mist.
“I asked you a question yesterday when I should not,” said Vasya, when the lacy mustard-greens were tucked in her bag. “But I will ask again today, and you will please forgive a girl’s eagerness, Batyushka. I love my brother and my sister. It is long since we have had news of either. My brother is called Brother Aleksandr now.”
The priest’s mouth narrowed. “I know of him,” he said, after a brief hesitation. “There was a scandal when he took his vows under the name of his birth.”
Vasya half-smiled. “Our mother chose that name for him, and my brother was always stubborn.”
Rumors of Brother Aleksandr’s impious intransigence on the matter had spread throughout Muscovy. But, Konstantin reminded himself, monastic vows were not a subject for maidens. The girl had fastened her great eyes on his face. Konstantin began to feel uncomfortable. “Brother Aleksandr came to Moscow for the coronation of Dmitrii Ivanovich. It is said he has gained a certain renown for his ministry in the villages,” the priest added stiffly.
“And my sister?” said Vasya.
“The Princess of Serpukhov is honored for her piety and for her strong children,” Konstantin said, wishing an end to the conversation.
Vasya spun around with a little whoop of satisfaction. “I worry for them,” she said. “Father does, too, though he pretends not. Thank you, Batyushka.” And she turned on him a face all lit from within, so that Konstantin was startled and unwillingly fascinated. His expression grew colder. There was a small silence. The path widened and they walked abreast.
“My father said you have been to the ends of the earth,” said Vasya. “To Tsargrad, and the palace of a thousand kings. To the Church of Holy Wisdom.”
“Yes,” said Konstantin.
“Will you tell me of it?” she said. “Father says that at dusk the angels sing. And that the Tsar rules all men of God, as though he were God himself. That he has roomfuls of gems and a thousand servants.”
Her question took him aback. “Not angels,” Konstantin said slowly. “Men only, but men with voices that would not shame angels. At nightfall they light a hundred thousand candles, and everywhere there is gold and music…”
He stopped abruptly.
“It must be like heaven,” Vasya said.
“Yes,” said Konstantin. Memory had him by the throat: gold and silver, music, learned men and freedom. The forest seemed to choke him. “It is not a fit subject for girls,” he added.
Vasya lifted a brow. They came upon a blackberry bush. Vasya plucked a handful. “You did not want to come here, did you?” she said, around the blackberries. “We have no music or lights, and precious few people. Can you not go away again?”
“I go where God sends me,” Konstantin said, coldly. “If my work is here, then I will stay here.”
“And what is your work, Batyushka?” said Vasya. She had stopped eating blackberries. For an instant, her glance darted to the trees overhead.
Konstantin followed her eyes, but there was nothing there. An odd feeling crept up his spine. “To save souls,” he said. He could count the freckles on her nose. If ever a girl needed saving, it was this one. The blackberries had stained her lips and her hands.
Vasya half-smiled. “Are you going to save us, then?”
“If God gives me strength, I will save you.”
“I am only a country girl,” said Vasya. She reached again into the blackberry bush, wary of thorns. “I have never seen Tsargrad, or angels, or heard the voice of God. But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. We have never needed saving before.”
Konstantin stared at her. She only smiled at him, more child than woman, tall and thin and stained with blackberry juice. “Hurry,” she said. “It will be full light soon.”
THAT NIGHT, FATHER KONSTANTIN lay on his narrow cot and shivered and could not sleep. In the north, the wind had teeth that bit after sunset, even in summer.
He had placed his icons, as was right, in the corner opposite the door. The Mother of God hung in the central place, with the Trinity just below. At nightfall, the lady of the house, shy and officious, had given him a fat beeswax candle to set before the icons. Konstantin lit it at dusk and enjoyed the golden light. But in the moonlight, the candle cast sinister shadows over the Virgin’s face and set strange figures dancing wildly among the three parts of the Almighty. There was something hostile about the nighttime house. Almost, it seemed to breathe…
What foolishness, thought Konstantin. Annoyed with himself, he rose, intending to blow out the candle. But as he crossed the room, he heard the distinct click of a door closing. Without thinking, he veered to the window.
A woman darted across the space before the house, muffled in a heavy shawl. Plump she looked, and shapeless under the wrapper. Father Konstantin could not tell who she might be. The figure came to the church door and paused. She set a hand on the bronze ring, dragged the door open, and disappeared inside.
Konstantin stared at the place where she’d vanished. Of course there was nothing to prevent someone going to pray in the dead of night, but the house had its own icons. One might easily pray before them without braving the dark and the damp night air. And there had been something furtive—almost guilty—in the woman’s manner.